XXIII 
ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 
food may be compared to that already noted of wild 
turkeys ; for the principal subsistence of fish in the 
Rio Negro is on the fruits of riparial trees, some of 
which seem scarcely touched by either bird or 
monkey. A small laurel-like bush {Caraipa laii^^i- 
folia, S.) lines the banks in many places, and bears 
damson-like drupes, which are the favourite food of 
that delicious fish the Uaracil or Aracii. When the 
ripe drupes are dropping into the water they attract 
shoals of Uaracil. Then the fisherman stations his 
canoe at dawn of day in the mouth of some still 
igarape, overshaded by bushes of Uaracii-Tamacoan' 
(the native Indian name of the tree), and with his 
arrows picks off the fish as they rise to snatch the 
floating fruits. It ought to be mentioned that the 
fish of the Negro, if much fewer, are some of them 
perhaps superior in flavour to any Amazon fish, 
whereof the Uaracu is an example, and the large 
Pirahyba is another, the latter being so luscious 
that it is difficult to know when one has had enough 
of it, whereas the same or a very closely allied 
species of the Amazon is often scarcely edible.^ 
I have, in what precedes, purposely avoided 
speaking of the way in which animals prey on each 
other, because the ultimate measure of the amount 
of animal life must always depend on that of vege- 
table life, and not because I shut my eyes to the 
fact. 
Concluding Remarks 
I leave these disjecta meijibra in the hands of 
naturalists, hoping that they may find among them 
^ For further information on the fishes of the Rio Negro I must refer to 
Mr. Wallace's interesting account of that river {Travels, chaps, ix., x., and 
xvi,), and to Schomburgk's Fishes of Guiana. 
